neither [https://shadowsprey.com/wp-content/uploads/story-images/01_27i_01_Neither-Stars-thumb04.png]

VII:

Kanna ran until she thought her heart would stop. It hammered in her throat, choking her. Her shins ached from pounding against the unforgiving ice. The surface of the wasteland was coated in blood and bodies that she dodged and leapt over, but they paraded endlessly in the cold grey.

She had begun to recognize them. Many were opponents she had cut down in the Theatre to the roar of a crowd in order to slake her own pain. Others were the dead that didn’t wake with her.

Kanna stepped to the side as another body barred her way and her ankle folded beneath her. The ground dropped away and she slid, scratching at the surface and tearing off her nails as she tried to gain purchase on the slick incline that had appeared where the land had been solid moments before. The world spun, her shoulders and hips bruising against the unforgiving rock. At the bottom she landed in a heap.

Her breath came in jagged gasps, her lungs unable to be relieved by the thin nothing of the air. Her blood rushed in her ears like an echo and beneath it she could hear the waters of the Iss river, the floating ice cracking and popping like bird bones breaking. The pain from the fall reverberated through her body, and she shut her eyes against the throbbing hurt.

“No,” she begged, pleading with whatever force controlled this place. “Not here.”

Kanna opened her eyes to the pointed tips of white boots. They were clean, unmarred, and shone like mirrors in the dark. She tried to pull herself up, but only managed to push herself onto all fours.

“You were never graceful, sister,” a voice said. A hand reached down, grasping her by the arm and yanking her to standing.

Kanna followed the woman’s short-cropped nails to her face. Her hair was pulled back into a tight braid at the base of her neck. It looked flat brown in the dim Ilazki light, but Kanna knew it gleamed copper when the sun hit it. The woman’s eyes had a familiar tilt to her own, but they were an endless dark, scattered with tarnished gold.

Kanna tried to jerk her arm away but the woman’s grip tightened and held. The hand on her arm was a vice, and no matter how hard she struggled she couldn’t break free. Defeat settled on her, it’s weight familiar.

“Why are you calling me sister?” she asked, stilling her struggles.

“Because that is what you are. My dearest sister,” the woman said. She leaned in, her lips unnervingly close to Kanna’s ear. “The dark stain on my name.”

The flash of metal caught Kanna’s attention. A primal instinct gave her strength, and she twisted hard, wrenching her body out of the woman’s grasp.

Kanna backed away as the woman stepped forward.

Kanna’s foot slid. Another pool of blood was at her feet, but this one wasn’t old or tacky. It was slick and freshly spilled, still steaming against the icy ground.

“Look at what you have done this time,” the woman said, her sibilant voice carrying an air of disappointment.

Kanna shook her head. “I didn’t,” she said. The defense was hollow even in her own ears. “I wouldn’t.”

“It is not hard to believe,” the woman said with a smile. “You have murdered so many before, and you will continue. It is all you are good for, Ananke. You are a weapon, nothing more.”

The woman sighed. “This would not have happened if you had stayed in your place.”

Kanna covered her ears, trying to calm the pounding of her heart that had begun anew. The dark thing inside of her fluttered to life, as if confirming the woman’s words.

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With a single finger, the woman lifted Kanna’s chin to meet her eyes. “It’s alright, sister,” she said. “I will fix this.”

Kanna looked into the woman’s eyes and knew what she said was true. She could make things right again. Even as the shell of a person, Kanna had not touched anything without leaving claw marks in it. The temptation to give in, to let the woman take the responsibility and the burden of keeping her contained was almost too great to deny.

“Kanna!”

The sound of a new voice interrupted her thoughts and she turned to it. It rang clear, cutting over the ice and through the stillness. It was different from the others. It did not echo, it did not slide or sift through the air. It sliced through, solid and true and warm.

A man appeared at the rise of the incline. His hair was dark as the night, but his eyes shone bright against it. Crisp and blue, they were interlaced with a gold that was pure and alive. There was a clarity in them that shocked her. She didn’t want to be what the woman said, couldn’t be. There had to be something more.

The dark thing scratched and screamed a name.

“Haru?”

The man’s eyes widened, looking past her.

“Kanna, run!”

She tried to turn but the woman’s arm circled her neck and trapped her against her body.

“That’s a shame,” the woman with snakes in her voice said.

A blinding pain tore into her side. She felt the skin break, the muscles rip as the metal entered her body. It found its way in through the loose ties at the side of her armor, angling up, seeking her heart.

Kanna looked down and watched as the blade withdrew. Her traitor heart pumped harder and the blood spread over the white of her uniform.

Her blood.

Kanna felt another kind of pain and locked eyes with the man across the waste. Haru, the dark whispered. His eyes had darkened, his hands reaching out as he ran to her.

The woman lowered her lips to Kanna’s ear.

“You should have listened to me.”

Kanna knew she had to keep her eyes open. If she kept them open, she could stay here.

Haru was so close, and she reached for him.

She realized her eyes were open, but it didn’t matter anymore.

Her legs gave out.

Her heart stopped.

The world shattered.

glass [https://shadowsprey.com/wp-content/uploads/story-images/01_27i_02_NeitherGlass_04.png]

VIII:

Haru slid to a halt where Kanna had dropped from view, stopping short just before tumbling down the incline himself. He scanned the ground below until he spotted her.

She wasn’t alone. A vision of Velinius held Kanna by the arm, stopping her from pulling away. Haru could hear Kanna’s voice drifting over the expanse between them. She was arguing with the vision, but he could only hear Kanna’s words.

“Kanna!”

She stopped speaking to the echo of Velinius, her head snapping at the sound of his voice.

Haru slid down the incline, racing to her. The tether between them pulled him forward as everything else faded away.

Velinius flickered into view behind Kanna, her dark eyes glimmering with old gold.

“Kanna, run!” he called, forcing the words through his lungs.

It was too late. Haru saw the flash of steel as the knife sunk deep into Kanna’s side, watched as the pain broke over her and the red blossomed over her white uniform.

Kanna met his eyes over the distance. They were alive, sparkling grey, a sky that promised storms. She kept her eyes open, forcing herself to stay on her feet as the glint in them dimmed.

Haru reached her as she fell, his arms out to break her fall.

The world cracked, and he was cast away.